Awkwardness
by aries-angel12
Summary: Written for PPF at Goldenlake.  AU: Kel is not a knight. But she'll be Empress of Carthak instead. Awkwardness ensues.


Title: Awkwardness  
>Rating: G<br>Length: 1982 words.  
>Category: Tortall<br>Peculiar Pairing: Kel/Kaddar  
>Summary: AU, KelKaddar where Kel is not a knight, and takes Kalasin's place.

Written for Peculiar Pairings Ficathon at Goldenlake.

They can't pretend that it's not awkward.

Every other scenario except this one has different people in different places, and they're both pretty sure that in the ideal scenario in their heads, they will never be the one standing in front of the other, looking awkwardly and anywhere except their eyes.

"I know you wanted Kalasin. I'm sorry you have me instead." The words fall bluntly out of her mouth, and she feels like she dropped rocks into the ocean with the weight those words carried.

"I know that neither of us have particularly what we wanted, but for our sake, Carthak's sake and Tortall's sake I think we need to make it work."

" I think we can manage that. I think we can at the least, manage to be happy."

"I will make sure of it."

For their first conversation, it's dull and dry and to the point and she does kind of wish it didn't feel forced and it felt something romantic and she didn't feel like this was just a quick and easy way to her death. He takes her hand and places a kiss across her scarred fingers, and she puts her arm through his as he escorts her toward the new palace. Her expectations had been lower, especially when she had first found out.

But meeting Kalasin had been even worse. Judgement by the one who should have been in her place.

She was four years into her training to be a 'lady'. A lady fit to be an Empress. Four years into Empress training with Lady Danae of King's Reach. Shock still hit her at times, confusion as to what, if not why, exactly a diplomat's daughter had been chosen as the replacement for Tortall's Crown Princess when she went against her parents' wishes to become a knight. She vaguely remembered something along the lines of Kaddar, and trade treaties and Yamanis and Copper Isles and allies. She hadn't yet met the girl who had stolen her dream, despite in some unfortunate coincidence her being Lady Danae's husband's squire. She tried to look outside of the bitterness she felt towards her. It was harder than it seemed.

A frozen Lord Hamrath and his even more frozen girl squire arrived at King's Reach a month before Midwinter, in an early snowdrift. Kel, as a lady in training, was assigned to be a hostess for the Crown Princess while her lord and lady were erstwhile occupied. There is an openly judging glare shared between the two, and Kel realises that the resentment she feels is echoed, because in some alternate universe they both get to follow their dreams and in another their places are switched and it's how it should be. They are alone at breakfast the next morning, and the atmosphere in the room, bright and flickering with warmth from the fire, is as cold as if there are no thick stone walls separating them from the windy ice filled courtyard outside. They both reach for the same pot of honey, and a polite exchange filled with sarcasm and annoyance follows. After they have both flicked spoonfuls of porridge at each other, staining their fancier clothes, they decide to take it out on the archery court, where they at least know that their aim is slightly more guaranteed. After they call it a draw, and both catch a cold and fever from standing in the courtyard for an hour, they settled on a friendship of sorts.

In time, her and Kally had settled into a firm friendship, due in part to the fact that they could both guarantee that being friends with the other wasn't going to improve the other's status. And to the fact that there was something almost addictive about knowing what life she could have had, and Kally in return.

She sneaks out the first night. In hindsight, she really should have actually thought about the fact that she had no idea of the palace layout, and being caught by the Emperor and his personal guards trying to sneak into his rooms is not at all a good impression. She insists that she swears the door to the armoury was this way, and realises as soon as the words slip out of her mouth that she's made an even worse impression.

Her saving grace is the small, slightly mouth curved up at the corners smile that Kaddar wears, and the tiny sparkle of amusement, that if she had not spent so long with the Yamanis, she wouldn't have been able to see sparkling in his eyes. He overrides the guards' suspicions, firstly about the strange foreigner sneaking into the Emperor's personal suite and secondly about said foreigner looking for weapons. He introduces them and the guards become even more suspicious, until he dismisses them and says that he will show the Lady Keladry back to her suite. He takes her to his suite instead, and shows her his weapon kit, and the small room off his chambers he uses to practice. He invites her to use them whenever she wishes, and she doesn't think he's serious until he says, with a laugh, that he has met both Daine and Alanna, and she reminds him of them. He shows her back to her suite, and as she closes the door, he smiles and says that it's a trick he also uses to try to get back to sleep.

There is a slight sense of awkwardness as he arrives at her door several days later. It's her official presentation to the Carthakis as his betrothed, and she is flummoxed. She can't find her most prized shusken, the one that was bought at Mithros knows how many gold nobles purely to match this outfit, and she doesn't think that in the Graveyard Hag's country she should really go around weaponless. Kaddar's knock at her door creates even more butterflies, bouncing around in her stomach, and she signals for one of her maids to let him in. Frantically scrabbling through her dressing table, she doesn't notice when he stops and stares at her, until he taps her shoulder with the closed fan. He notices when her fingers close around her wrist and she sinks her nails, painfully, into his skin, and he forces himself to remember that as much as she could pass for a court lady, she did want to be a knight. Her horrified expression at the blood seeping through the tears in his skin turns to a smile first at his laughter, and then at the fan he is holding. He waves a glowing red finger over the wounds and they stop bleeding, and Kel hangs her shusken onto her ornamental belt/obi/sash. He offers her his arm and he escorts her out of her chambers, to face his council and his people. She says his, and he says our.

It takes several months for them to both feel truly comfortable with each other. It's very strongly platonic, for now, but Kel knows that it can one day turn to love. She can see it, feel it. It's at one of the several occasions that it is them, eating dinner in his chambers, supervised, that she suggests he should show her his archery skills. Unfortunately, he sees through her "flattery" approach, and tells her that he's already found her a longbow and he only has to think of a prize before they can compete against each other. She smiles, and laughs at the fact that he has begun to know her so well.  
>And so it goes on.<br>He shows her the palace kennels, and she falls in love with the runt of the bunch, a scarred and small wolfhound that stands out from all the others. He gives it to her, and it's the first present, the second after the longbow, that she can say she truly loves with all her heart, and actually mean it.

The day before the Tortallan contingent for their wedding arrives, Kel and Kaddar manage to waylay his mother, and a larger group of guards to go for a ride. They, for the first time, express all of their thoughts, from their first impressions to their hopes and past lovers and thoughts and wants for the future. He brings up Kalasin, and she knows then that their relationship is no longer purely platonic, because he tells her that she is everything he could have hoped for from Kally, and more. It lessens the awkwardness between the three of them when Kally arrives with the delegation, as a representative of the Crown.

As the carriage rides through the palace grounds, Kel cannot help but smile at the greeting it gets. She expected dislike from the Carthakis on behalf of the doubly double foreigner, but somewhere along the line her compassion and belief for what was right won her the people's hearts, and respect. The carriage continues to ride through the grounds, from Kaddar's mother's house, where she had spent her last night as a Lady of Mindelan, and of Tortall. She held her mother and father's hands as they led her out of the carriage, and escorted her to the entrance of the Palace's Great Hall. She kissed them both, and her mother wiped tears away from her own, as well as Kel's eyes. They whisper words of encouragement and prayers in her ears. Her father takes her arm, and Ilane takes his other, and united they walk towards the grand doors, pulled open by guards in their finest livery. Her father leads her down the aisle, and she smiles at Kalasin as she drifts past. Her smile grows bigger as she looks at Kaddar, dressed in the greatest deal of finery and pomp that she ever thought to see, and thinks that next to him, she will definitely look even more underdressed then what she already was. Her gown was simple, cut in a Tortallan style with Carthaki fabric and designs, with a sheer Yamani veil. They'd tried to incorporate their mix of cultures, and neither could still say that it worked entirely successfully. His smile was the brightest she had ever seen it as he lifted her veil, and she knew that she felt just as happy.

She insists that he carry her over the threshold. It's a Tortallan tradition, and she doesn't care if they're in Carthak and her Tortallan side has been extinguished, she's still making him do it. She laughs, her body shaking, as he struggles to open the door with her in his arms, and laughs harder when he complains, smiling, that she's making it harder for him. He opens the door, and deposits her on the bed. She smirks up at him as he unlaces her shoes, and he leans over her, kissing her in a way that is more appropriate for a common-born man and wife rather than two of the most powerful people in the Eastern and Southern Lands, but she wouldn't want it any other way. He gives up on her intricate laces and deepens their kiss, joining her on the bed. She pulls away, breathing heavily, and he tugs at the small curl, escaped from her complex hair. She tugs his hand away, and holds it in her own. He kisses her neck, and her ear, before pulling back.

"I'm quite glad, my darling, that my mother is such a conventional woman." He whispers, wickedly, into her ear. She wraps her arms around his neck, looking into his eyes, slightly puzzled.

"And why, my darling, is that?"

"Because then, darling Kel, I wouldn't be attracted to such an unconventional woman like you."

His laughter is drowned by the playful slap she gives him, but he is back in her good graces soon enough.

They had lost their awkwardness quite some time ago.


End file.
